Thursday, June 30, 2016

There's an interesting article here from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)studying the Zika outbreak in Columbia. The article is, naturally, long and complicated. But cutting to the meat, the conclusion the researchers give in the abstract is as follows (emphasis mine):Preliminary surveillance data in Colombia suggest that maternal infection with the Zika virus during the third trimester of pregnancy is not linked to structural abnormalities in the fetus. However, the monitoring of the effect of ZVD on pregnant women in Colombia is ongoing.

As they quite responsibly say, this is preliminary data and monitoring is ongoing. However, the implications of the findings are grave indeed. Why is this virus linked to foetal abnormalities in Brazil but not in Columbia? Is there a difference between what is happening in the two countries?

Well, as it happens there is. Brazil puts larvacides into its drinking water to keep the mosquito population down. And they changed brands not long before the spike in abnormalities began.

Could the insecticide be causing the problem? Brazil denied the possibility when the idea was first raised some months back. But this new report gives the suggestion new credibility. However, establishing that toxins targeting mosquito larvae is the cause isn't the issue here. If the preliminary indications of the NEJM report turn out to be correct that there is no link between abnormalities and Zika in Columbia, then it follows that there is a link in Brazil is unlikely to the extent of being highly implausible.

One thing is clear. The push for pregnant women infected with Zika to have an abortion needs to stop. I am pro-life; so of course I am of the opinion that it was always wrong to advise women to have an abortion because their was a risk their child would be born disabled. But I would hope that even the most ardent pro-abortion advocate would agree that it is lunacy to give that advice when there is doubt as to the causal link between the virus and abnormalities.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

My teenage son has posted a video of himself reviewing his new bike on his YouTube channel. He had his eight-year old brother act as camera man. I think they have both done an excellent job - clearly both chips off the old block, their father, as some of you may know, having spent happy years in his younger days both in front of and behind the camera. So please watch this.

My son the reviewer informs me that if he gets to one million views YouTube will pay him $5000. He currently has about 500 - so he has a little way to go! So give it a look and help him along his way ... and to be honest, it's not about making it to a million - I think if he gets it up to the four-figure mark he'll be over the moon! So, if you will, view, like, and share.

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Matthew 16. 19

Reflection: This verse describes what is called 'the power of the keys.' It shows our Lord granted great authority to the Church he founded; which means that we, as his followers, must have great respect for that authority.

Monday, June 27, 2016

A scribe came up and said to him, 'Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.' And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.'

Matthew 8. 19,20

Reflection Thus it is that our Lord warns us that the rewards of following him are not to be found in this life. Indeed, to follow him demands great sacrifice; but the ultimate rewards for that sacrifice are beyond price.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

May
my words be in the Name of Almighty God: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Amen.

In our gospel today we have three sayings from our Lord which emphasise
the cost of discipleship. Context is, of course, very important, so
it is necessary for us to understand the circumstances under which
Jesus is speaking. The time, St Luke tells, is drawing near for Jesus
to be received up, in other words to be crucified; and he has set his
face towards Jerusalem. And as he journeys, men come up to him,
offering to be his followers. The high cost of his own obedience to
the will of the Father is quite naturally very much on his mind. And
out of that he speaks to these would be followers of what the cost
will be for them for trying to emulate that obedience by following
him.

His
response to each man is phrased very much like a proverb. Proverbs
are, as I am sure you all know, a way of saying something wise and
profound in a short and often dramatic form. But they are not to be
take with slavish literalness, for if you do, then you get bogged
down in the details while at the same time missing the fundamental
point of what is being said. For example, the saying a bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush has actually nothing to do with either
birds or bushes or the market value of feathered creatures; and the
one that states it is a long road that has no turns is not really
talking about roads, turns, or indeed commenting on highway
construction. Taking these sayings literally would cause you to miss
the point they are trying to make. And the same can be said of the
rather challenging proverb-like sayings that our Lord speaks in
today's Gospel.

So
let us consider these three sayings in more detail. The first is when
Jesus says, in response to a man who wants to follow him ‘Foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has
nowhere to lay his head.’ The next is when, having called a
man to follow him the man says first let me bury my father and Jesus
says ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and
proclaim the kingdom of God.’ And to a third man, who has said he
will indeed follow the Lord, but first wishes to go home and make his
farewells, he says ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks
back is fit for the kingdom of God.’

Now,
if we look elsewhere in the Gospels, we can see that Jesus does not
intend what he is saying here to be taken as literal requirements of
the Christian life. Looking at the first one, when he says the Son of
Man has nowhere to lay his head, we know from Scripture that Jesus,
while he did indeed spend a lot of time travelling from place to
place teaching, was far from being homeless. There was a house in
Capernaum that is referred to as his home; we frequently see him
being welcomed into people's homes as an honoured guest; and we know
that there were wealthy women who were part of his followers who
provided for him and the others out of their resources. So he is not
exactly homeless; but he has left what little comfort there is in his
life for this last journey to Jerusalem.

In
relation to when he tells a man to let the dead bury their own dead,
taken literally that would be rather shocking. But we know from the
Gospels that Jesus had great compassion on the bereaved, as we see
from his encounter with the widow of Nain at the funeral of her only
son or his visit to the tomb of Lazarus. Mary and Martha, it should
be noted, we already devoted followers of his; and there is no
suggestion from our Lord that they should do other than mourn or
ensure the usual funeral customs are observed.

The
final one is when the man wishes to say goodbye to his family and
Jesus says that no one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back
is fit for the kingdom of heaven. We know that St Peter and all the
Apostles abandoned him in the Garden of Gethsemane when his enemies
came for him; that Peter in fact denied him; and that none save St
John stood with him in his agony as he suffered and died upon the
cross. And yet Christ welcomed all of them back, made them leaders of
his Church, charged them at his Ascension with making disciples of
all nations, and that all of them are now saints in heaven standing
before the throne of God. They all did far more than look back; and
yet all of them was most certainly fit for the kingdom of heaven.

So,
as we are clearly not to take what our Lord here with complete
literalness, what are we to learn from these sayings of his? With the
first, that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head, he reminds us
of the challenge of Christian living. It is a life of sacrifice;
something for which the rewards are not this life but in the next.
And it is worth noting that many Church Fathers, in commenting on
this passage, believe that this man sought personal advantage in
associating himself with Jesus, thinking that he would gain in some
way by becoming a follower; and that as a result of Jesus' stark
warning that this would not be the case, he walked away from Christ.

In
relation to letting the dead bury their own dead, our Lord here uses
hyperbole, exaggeration for the sake of effect. To be a Christian
means having obedience to God as the first priority in your life in
all things. Nothing else can be set before following his will in all
things, no matter how important they may seem. And again it should be
noted that St Cyril of Alexandria, a Father of the Church, wrote that
it wasn't the case that the man was looking to go and attend to the
funeral of his father; but rather that his father was still living
and the man was telling Jesus he would come and follow him when he
died, whenever that might be. He was effectively telling Jesus that I
would love to be your follower – at some time in the future when it
is convenient to me.

Finally,
with regard to the man who wishes first to return to his family, our
Lord is again employing hyperbole. First let us consider the metaphor
he employs, that of a plough. In ancient Israel, this was a light
wooden affair, pulled by oxen. The ploughman needed one hand on the
plough to to keep it straight, and the other holding the reins of his
team of oxen. To plough a straight furrow required that all one's
focus needed to be on the task at hand; looking around or looking
away meant at best the furrows would go all over the place, and at
worst you would run into a rock or some other obstacle and shatter
the plough itself. The Christian life requires full focus on what
lies ahead, not looking back longingly at the life that that has been
left behind. That is the old life of sin and death; and dipping back
into it for friendly visits with those who are still part of it risks
tempting the Christian back into that life. As St Augustine puts it
with the regard to the man Jesus was speaking to, it was as if he was
being called to the East, and instead he wished to turn to the West;
or as the Venerable Bede says, he acted like Lot's wife and by
looking back at the things he was to leave and thereby risked loosing
the gift of the kingdom to come.

But
even if what our Lord is saying here is not to be taken with slavish
literalness, they are nonetheless intended to make it forcefully
clear of the great cost that is entailed in following Christ. And as
I said at the beginning, proverbs contain great wisdom. And if that
is true then such sayings given us from our Lord contain greater
wisdom still, coming as they do from the lips of the God himself, the
second person of the Blessed Trinity. The wisdom he imparts to us in
our reading today is intended, as with all his teaching, for the
salvation of our souls, to help us end where God created us to be –
with him in heaven. And I pray that the words we have heard spoken by
our Lord today – words intended to make us realise the importance
of making living the Christian life the primary focus of our lives –
will indeed enter into your hearts and bear fruit in your lives this
day and always. Amen.

So, the 'leave' side won in the Brexit debate. Did I see it coming? I can't say that I did ... but I did think it likely enough to defer buying the sterling I need for a trip to England next week until after the results were in - and saved myself about €20 on the exchange rate as a result, thank you very much!On a serious note, the narrow victory - which means that the UK remains very much divided over the issue - does show that a major change such as this over such a contentious issue would probably have been served by requiring a two-thirds majority rather than a simple one. Too late now ... but perhaps a lesson to be learned for other nations ... particularly if the UK's example prompts others to consider doing likewise.

Think of the many times our Saviour told those who follow him to pray. Prayer, then, is a commandment from God; and as such it is something that we must do. Consider then the dangers of neglecting your own prayer life. It is more than simply being lax in your faith if you fail to do so, and do so regularly. It is to be disobedient to the words he spoke to us directly in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Where does your true loyalty lie? What matters most to you? Would you be afraid to say grace before eating lunch in a restaurant because you were worried what others might think? Is a late night out on Saturday more important than being able to get up on Sunday for worship? Are you sure you know who your true master is?

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Have humility not only in your heart but also by your very appearance make it always manifest to those who see you … head bowed and your eyes toward the ground. Feeling the guilt of your sins at every moment, you should consider yourself already present at the dread Judgement and constantly say in your heart what the publican in the Gospel said with his eyes fixed on the earth: "Lord, I am a sinner and not worthy to lift up my eyes to heaven" (Luke 18:13; Matt. 8:8);

Sunday, June 12, 2016

May
my words be in the Name of Almighty God: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Amen.

Our
Gospel today concerns the story of the Lord's anointing by a woman as
he sat at table. We are given versions of this event by all four of
the Evangelists, which makes it quite unusual really. There are not
that many stories, other than our Lord's Passion, Death, and
Resurrection, that are in all four Gospels. True indeed were our
Lord's words that all long as the Gospels were preached that this
tale would be told in memory of her.

As
is so often the case with stories that are in more than one Gospel,
the details vary as each writer seeks to draw from the event a
different theological emphasis. Looking at all the accounts, the full
story seems to have been as follows: Jesus, along with his followers,
is invited to dine with a man called Simon, a Pharisee, at his home
in Bethany. St Mark calls him 'Simon the Leper' so perhaps he is a
man who formerly suffered from one of the many quite loathsome skin
diseases referred
to in the Bible as leprosy, but are not what we call leprosy today. Perhaps he was even healed by Jesus as we know that he healed many
lepers.

And as a leper was ritually unclean, someone forbidden to mix
with others or take part in the religious rituals of the day, that
would have been something quite important to a man like Simon. Maybe
that explains why he invited Jesus to his house, even though the
Pharisees in general did not like Jesus. Also present, as we learn
from St John, is Lazarus after he had been raised for the dead. While
they sit at table a woman comes in and anoints Jesus with a very
expensive perfume, washing his feet with her tears and drying them
with her hair. And it is St John alone who gives us the woman's name
– Mary, the sister of Lazarus.

At
this point, the accounts separate. Matthew, Mark, and John focus on
the reaction of the bystanders to the anointing – they see the cost
of the perfume and think of the woman's actions being a waste. But
Jesus defends her actions – he is worthy to be treated with such
honour. John draws out in particular the hypocrisy of Judas in this
matter – even as he protests the waste he mourns the chance to sell
the perfume and keep the money for himself, as he was a thief.

We
must pause here to consider what kind of sinner it is that the woman
is. All people are, of course, sinners; but this woman is more than a
sinner in that sense – she is a notorious sinner, known to all
about her as being someone who had led a sinful life. The tradition
of the Church, from the Fathers down, is that her sin was of a sexual
nature, even perhaps a woman of the night. Given we know from the
context of the times in which she lived, this seems the most likely
explanation.

If
we turn to St John's Gospel, we know that by the time of this
anointing that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were already
well-established as followers of Christ. So it seems reasonable to
suppose that long before the anointing Mary had turned from her
sinful life to become a disciple of Jesus along with her brother and
sister. Their faith in him was proved to be well founded by the
raising of her brother. And at this dinner at the house of Simon –
to which, as a follower of Jesus she would have had access – she
comes weeping, to express not only gratitude that her brother has
been restored to her, but also that her own sins have been forgiven.
The family's close brush with death would very likely have brought
home to her with a particular vividness what her own fate would have
been had she died in her sins, had she not been granted pardon of
them by Jesus.

Simon
the Pharisee is rather sneering of the whole thing. Once a sinner
always condemned is his attitude. And if Jesus really were a prophet
he would know the sort of woman that she is. But Jesus knows what he
is thinking and acts to correct it. Most especially he makes it clear
that the sins of Mary have been forgiven. God has mercy even where
men do not. What is past is past; and the prostitute is now a saint.
And her holiness is made clear by St John who records the words of
our Lord making it clear that her act of anointing him is a prophetic
one, part of preparing him for his death, which we know he will give
for the lives of the sins of all. The sinner can indeed be a saint –
if they will but recognise that what they do is sin, turn from it,
ask God's forgiveness, and instead lead their life according to his
holy laws. That is how sinners become saints. And that is what we are
called to do – for we are all sinners; and we are called by God in
his mercy to be saints with him, and St Mary, in heaven.
Amen.

The fourth degree of humility is that he hold fast to patience with a silent mind when in this obedience he meets with difficulties and contradictions and even any kind of injustice, enduring all without growing weary or running away. For the Scripture says, "The one who perseveres to the end, is the one who shall be saved" (Matt. 10:22); and again "Let your heart take courage, and wait for the Lord" (Ps. 27:14)!

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

So, I heard about this Australian journalist who had sparked outrage by posting a racist joke about the Irish on instagram and twitter. Oh dear I thought, as I googled the story, prepared to be offended. Finding it, I found that what he had done was to caption a picture of a beach near him that had been devastated by a recent storm with the following:

“Coogee demolished over the weekend and for a pleasant change the Irish aren’t to blame.”

Gentle readers, what can I say? I was not offended; instead, I burst out laughing. The beach looks like Temple Bar in Dublin or Pana in Cork on the Sunday morning after a wild Saturday night. And Coogee beach, for those who are unaware, is a well-known haunt of the young Irish who make their way down under for the almost obligatory year or two of work, sun, and fun that so many head to Oz for these days.The journalist refuses to apologise for what he says was a joke. But perhaps I should for my failure to be sufficiently thin-skinned or politically correct enough. Try as I may, I cannot take offense at his remarks. But maybe I'm just congenitally disinclined to take anything that gets the online lynch mob going too seriously.

However, there is something about the story that one might take offence at were one so inclined. On his twitter feed I found the following concerning his post:

'Horrible racist comment, shame on you, you'd kick up if we were racist to your kind. Lucky the Irish are so easy going...!!'

'Your kind'? The name of the journalist in question is Josh Massoud; and based on his surname and the photos of him available of him online he appears to be of middle-eastern decent. 'You'd kick up if we were racist to your kind'? Oh, the irony of it all! Forgive me for saying it, but it seems they just were. And he apparently has not. Kicked up, that is. So Mr Massoud, it appears, is an easy-going enough fellow ... even if his critics are not!

May
my words be in the Name of Almighty God: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Amen.

We
have two examples of God's power over life and death in our readings
today. In the first, in our Old Testament reading, the son of the
widow of Zarephath is restored to life after the prophet Elijah
prays to God and his prayers are heard and his request is granted; in
the second, Jesus restores the son of the widow of Nain to life with
a touch and the words 'Young man I say to you, arise.' Two widows,
two sons who are brought back to life, but with telling differences –
in the first it is God answering the prayers of the prophet, in the
second Jesus raises the man from the dead by his own authority. And
this does not – or at least should not – surprise us, for Jesus is God
incarnate. And the power over life and death that we see God display
in Zarephath is the same power we see Jesus display in Nain.

This
is why we hear St Paul say in our epistle today 'I would have you
know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's
gospel.' For Christ is God and it is from Christ he has received the Gospel. St Paul in his letter to the Galatians, as you will of
course recall from last Sunday's readings, is fighting against the
heresies that have arisen in that region. People, while still
claiming to be followers of Christ, are trying to pervert the Gospel,
and preaching a false-gospel other than that brought to them by the
Apostle Paul, seemingly because they care more about winning the
favour of men than pleasing God. And St Paul will not countenance
this – it is not for man to change the Gospel in any way; for the
Gospel is not man's but God's. And because it is God's, and God has
given man free will, man is free to accept it in its entirety or
reject it in its entirety. But he is not free to change it, either by
adding to it as some in Galatia were attempting to do by trying to
force those who wished to become Christians into first converting to
Judaism – which included, for men, circumcision – or taking from
it, as many did then and still do today, by trying to soften the
teachings, particularly the hard ones such as those that relate to
sexual morality.

Now,
there is, I think, only one thing to do if you take with absolute
seriousness the idea that the Gospel is not something that was
invented by men, and was instead something revealed by God to men in
order that they should know how they might live in such a way that
pleases him – and that is to devote your life totally to living in
the way that the Gospel demands. We know that this is how St Paul
lived. Consider his life prior to his experience on the road to
Damascus – he was a man of authority, a man of power, a man of
influence in the society in which he lived. We do not know if he had
been a wealthy man – but he had the time to study to be a Pharisee,
and to sit at the feet of the best teachers that Jerusalem had to
offer. And he had been born not only a Jew, but a Roman citizen also
– this at a time when to be a citizen from outside the Eternal City
was something that a person would most likely pay a fair amount to
gain. So we can presume he came from a family that was at least
comfortably off. But he gave all that up to follow the Gospel. More,
he traded a life of comfort and respectability for one that would
take him from city to city in the Empire, paying his own way by
working at a manual trade, and suffering beatings, stonings,
shipwreck, arrest, imprisonment, and much more until he at last died
a martyr's death for the faith. That was St Paul's response to the
truth of the Gospel. And ours must be like it.

Ah,
but you may say, that Paul was a great saint – and we are but
ordinary men and women, poor sinners, and not the stuff of which
saints are made. But to that I must make the reply, what of it?
Before Paul was a great saint he was a great sinner – far worse
than any here, or at least I hope so! Did he not persecute God's
Church, hunting the faithful, trying to prevent the spread of the
Gospel? Did he not stand watching with approval as St Stephen was
stoned to death, at the very least complicit in his murder even if he
did not cast a stone himself? Was he not on his way to Damascus to
arrest more Christians, to bring them back bound to Jerusalem, to
suffer who knows what at the hands of those there who hated them and
the name of the one they followed, when the power of the Gospel
message came upon him?

But
that revelation from God was his opportunity to change. And remember,
even with so direct a call from God, Paul still had his free-will –
he could have said no and refused to follow. Did not a great many of
the Jews also see the great acts of power of our Lord but still
refuse to follow? So St Paul had a choice. But with God's grace he
chose wisely; he understood the truth of the Gospel, and despite all
that he knew it would cost him to follow it, nonetheless he did.

Why?
Because he knew that it is better to please God than men; that it is
better to give up all that the world has to offer for the sake of a
place in heaven. Because in the light of the Gospel Truth he saw that
if he were to do otherwise then he was effectively as dead as the
sons of the widows of Zarephath
and Nain; but by following Christ he was restored to life as they
were – a life of following Christ in this life and being with him
forever in the next. We are are called to such new life – and I
pray that all here will choose it. Amen.

Let a man consider that God is always looking at him from heaven, that his actions are everywhere visible to the divine eyes and are constantly being reported to God by the Angels. This is what the Prophet shows us when he represents God as ever present within our thoughts, in the words "Searcher of minds and hearts is God" (Ps. 7:10) and again in the words "The Lord knows the thoughts of men" (Ps. 94:11). Again he says, "You have read my thoughts from afar" (Ps. 139:3) and "The thoughts of people will confess to You" (Ps. 76:11). In order that he may be careful about his wrongful thoughts, therefore, let the faithful brother say constantly in his heart, "Then shall I be spotless before Him, if I have kept myself from my iniquity" (Ps. 18:24).

Saturday, June 4, 2016

A very interesting wee short film by a friend of mine in Cork, Brian Stynes. Well worth a look, especially in this decade of commemorations. Helps provide some context as to why so many Irish men were in the British Army during the Great War ... and why so many of the British soldiers involved in the 1916 Rising in Dublin were actually from Ireland.

Ancient Faith Radio

tempus fugit! The time to repent is now!

Greek Orthodox Chant from Mount Athos - The Jesus Prayer

your blogger

The verses of Sacred Scripture for the daily Prayer Diary is from that day's Gospel reading for Holy Communion

'And do not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.'

The letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans (12.2)

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About Me

Hi, I'm Paddy (the Rev Patrick G. Burke), a priest in the Church of Ireland. The title of the blog is from a description of me in a letter my grandmother wrote to my mother in 1965 when I was three! May God richly bless you and those whom you love today and everyday. Amen.